Cheapest airport for flight and/or rental car?

[Willow1213]

Hello All!

We are planning our first Disneyland trip for May 23-28th. We are flying in from Atlanta. I understand that there are a few airports in the area but does anyone know if any one airport is cheaper than the others? I am sure that flight prices will vary wildly, but is any airport any cheaper for rental cars? I have noticed that rental cars at LAX have extremely high taxes Any other suggestions for a cheap rental car?

Thanks so much!!

~Abby

 

[kimkatmom]

Abby:

The first challenge you will have is that you are flying on Memorial Day Weekend. That in itself will cause your air fares to be higher than usual. I would check with Southwest Airlines for your lowest fares. There are alot of options flying into the LA area. My guess would be that the cheapest flight would be into LAX, but also look at SNA.

The rental cars are usually higher in California than almost anywhere else. Assess whether or not you really need a rental car. Are you going to stay at DLR the entire time? If you are, you won't need a car.

It's workable. If you can be flexible, you have more options.

Leslye

 

[Mom of three]

You can also look into rental cars that are off site. Our last trip in July/August we flew into SNA (significantly cheaper at the time) and rented from United Auto Rental. They picked us up at baggage claim, drove us to thier site which was maybe 5 minutes away and it was significantly cheaper.

For rates during your stay a 7 passenger mini van is $250.07 including tax.

Im not sure how that compares to some of the other car rental places you've checked with but for a mini-van...I would say thats a smokin deal.

Good luck!

 

[Willow1213]

Abby:

The first challenge you will have is that you are flying on Memorial Day Weekend. That in itself will cause your air fares to be higher than usual. I would check with Southwest Airlines for your lowest fares. There are alot of options flying into the LA area. My guess would be that the cheapest flight would be into LAX, but also look at SNA.

The rental cars are usually higher in California than almost anywhere else. Assess whether or not you really need a rental car. Are you going to stay at DLR the entire time? If you are, you won't need a car.

It's workable. If you can be flexible, you have more options.

Leslye

Thanks for the advice Leslye. I figure we will miss Memorial Day traffic at the parks by leaving Friday, but it will make the airport slightly more crowded. I wish Southwest was an option for us since they are said to be cheaper, but they do not fly into Atlanta.

I'm so used to having a car with us the whole time that it will be odd to not have a rental. We are planning on driving to Universal for a day, so I guess we could pick up a car locally?

 

[jlmarr]

Yes, there are several rental car locations surrounding DLR, including one at the west end of DTD. If you're not renting at LAX then take the Disneyland Express bus, which goes directly to DLH and then has feeder busses drop you off at other area hotels. Alternatively take Supershuttle or Prime Time shuttle.

 

[thebeesknees]

It was cheaper to rent a car at SNA than LAX, but for the whole rental/air package, it was cheaper to fly to ONT and drive over to Anaheim.

 

[briangl]

I always use Priceline for rental cars. We rented a full size from ONT March 27-April 3 for $16/day. Pretty good deal as I think the total for the entire week was about $160. We always fly into long beach, orange county, or ontario. Never LAX.

 

[MG3G]

We are flying to LAX as it is over $1000 cheaper for the 4 paid tickets. (We also have a "lap baby"). I used the site "booking buddy" to compare rates and then booked directly through Thrifty. We have a full size car for 8 days and are paying $179 during march break. I checked into the airport shuttle BUT it was actually cheaper to rent a car for the week then to use a shuttle service and rent a car for the two days we aren't going to DLR.

 

[IBLarsen]

I have gotten great deals on rental cars at SNA airport through Hotwire. SNA was very very easy to do rental cars, and quick. That airport is easy in and easy out. We paid a slight bit more to fly into there for one of our flights, but got a much cheaper deal on car rental using hotwire to make it worth it and to avoid LAX. The second time, it was the same price to fly into SNA as LAX so we again chose SNA. Check Hotwire for cars though!